I thought this would be fun, as obvs lots of people are talking about guns right now. I made this chart because using the states inside the US is a much more useful comparison than trying to compare countries which have far more differences than states.

This is a chart showing the homicide rate per 100,000 citizens in each of the 50 states. The states are listed in order by gun ownership percentage, ranging from 8% to 60%.

Here's the fun part: You have to guess whether the states with high gun ownership rates are listed at the top, or the bottom.

At 7/22/2012 7:10:19 PM, JaxsonRaine wrote:I thought this would be fun, as obvs lots of people are talking about guns right now. I made this chart because using the states inside the US is a much more useful comparison than trying to compare countries which have far more differences than states.

This is a chart showing the homicide rate per 100,000 citizens in each of the 50 states. The states are listed in order by gun ownership percentage, ranging from 8% to 60%.

Here's the fun part: You have to guess whether the states with high gun ownership rates are listed at the top, or the bottom.

The average homicide rate for the 25 states with highest rates of gun ownership was 4.54.The average homicide rate for the 25 states with lowest rates of gun ownership was 4.79.

So the next time someone says more guns = more crime... slap some sense into them.

There is only a 41% correlation (r = 0.41) between households with loaded firearms, and violent crimes.

The sum of squared errors of prediction is 43,953% (SSE = 439.53); which means it is an extremely flawed model. Anyone who tries to say guns lead to more crime are using an extremely flawed model. It's impossible to predict crime rates based gun ownership, and is very little correlation between gun ownership and crime rates.

"Chemical weapons are no different than any other types of weapons."~Lordknukle

At 7/22/2012 7:10:19 PM, JaxsonRaine wrote:I thought this would be fun, as obvs lots of people are talking about guns right now. I made this chart because using the states inside the US is a much more useful comparison than trying to compare countries which have far more differences than states.

This is a chart showing the homicide rate per 100,000 citizens in each of the 50 states. The states are listed in order by gun ownership percentage, ranging from 8% to 60%.

Here's the fun part: You have to guess whether the states with high gun ownership rates are listed at the top, or the bottom.

The average homicide rate for the 25 states with highest rates of gun ownership was 4.54.The average homicide rate for the 25 states with lowest rates of gun ownership was 4.79.

So the next time someone says more guns = more crime... slap some sense into them.

There is only a 41% correlation (r = 0.41) between households with loaded firearms, and violent crimes.

The sum of squared errors of prediction is 43,953% (SSE = 439.53); which means it is an extremely flawed model. Anyone who tries to say guns lead to more crime are using an extremely flawed model. It's impossible to predict crime rates based gun ownership, and is very little correlation between gun ownership and crime rates.

At 7/22/2012 8:51:00 PM, DanT wrote:There is only a 41% correlation (r = 0.41) between households with loaded firearms, and violent crimes.

The sum of squared errors of prediction is 43,953% (SSE = 439.53); which means it is an extremely flawed model. Anyone who tries to say guns lead to more crime are using an extremely flawed model. It's impossible to predict crime rates based gun ownership, and is very little correlation between gun ownership and crime rates.

You know, I just realized something... I've forgotten most of what I learned in college.

I realized this several times last week as well, but my memory isn't so good either...

I think it's ironic that the chart I made ended up being almost perfectly chaotic.

At 7/22/2012 8:51:00 PM, DanT wrote:There is only a 41% correlation (r = 0.41) between households with loaded firearms, and violent crimes.

The sum of squared errors of prediction is 43,953% (SSE = 439.53); which means it is an extremely flawed model. Anyone who tries to say guns lead to more crime are using an extremely flawed model. It's impossible to predict crime rates based gun ownership, and is very little correlation between gun ownership and crime rates.

You know, I just realized something... I've forgotten most of what I learned in college.

I realized this several times last week as well, but my memory isn't so good either...

I think it's ironic that the chart I made ended up being almost perfectly chaotic.

There are no labels on your chart, so it's hard to read.

"Chemical weapons are no different than any other types of weapons."~Lordknukle

At 7/22/2012 8:51:00 PM, DanT wrote:There is only a 41% correlation (r = 0.41) between households with loaded firearms, and violent crimes.

The sum of squared errors of prediction is 43,953% (SSE = 439.53); which means it is an extremely flawed model. Anyone who tries to say guns lead to more crime are using an extremely flawed model. It's impossible to predict crime rates based gun ownership, and is very little correlation between gun ownership and crime rates.

You know, I just realized something... I've forgotten most of what I learned in college.

I realized this several times last week as well, but my memory isn't so good either...

I think it's ironic that the chart I made ended up being almost perfectly chaotic.

There are no labels on your chart, so it's hard to read.

I purposefully left them off. I wanted to see if someone could tell which end of the chart was states with lots of guns, and which end was states with few guns, just by looking at it.

At 7/22/2012 9:05:34 PM, 16kadams wrote:Bad way to compare unless you are using regressions and other statidtical models to avoid statistical problems. In other words, even though I agree, your point falls into the endogenity problem.

It's not meant to be a serious study. It's meant to shut up people who say 'Durr, but the UK don't have ur gun murders'.

Certainly, if comparing country to country with no controls, then state to state should be fine too :D

At 7/22/2012 9:05:34 PM, 16kadams wrote:Bad way to compare unless you are using regressions and other statidtical models to avoid statistical problems. In other words, even though I agree, your point falls into the endogenity problem.

It's not meant to be a serious study. It's meant to shut up people who say 'Durr, but the UK don't have ur gun murders'.

Certainly, if comparing country to country with no controls, then state to state should be fine too :D

Comparing country to country is not fine, I wrote a long post no one bothered to read on these forums yesterday. As the only way to get good trends relies on comparisons, as long as the proper steps are taken.http://www.debate.org...